Flashes of Time
by Mendeia
Summary: Oneshot, 50-word prompt about our favorite Cap-Bearer. There's an important difference between being dragged before Skullmaster and walking up proudly while snapping off a smart remark, and Max understands this better than anyone.


Well, I know it's been a long time since I posted in this fandom, but I haven't forgotten it at all. Promise! I even have a big crossover already underway. I just…get distracted. So, in order to get myself back in the groove of things, I borrowed one of the 50-word prompts from LiveJournal, and here it is.

I don't own Mighty Max, though I wish I did – it would totally be on DVD by now!

Enjoy!

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1. Mistakes

With the scale of "wrong answer on a test" versus "failed to save the world" in mind, Max has really loosened up about getting the small stuff wrong in the last few years, much to his teachers' chagrin.

2. Heartfelt

Norman never says anything, and neither does Virgil, and truth be told, he'd be weirded-out if they did, but there's still something that happens when the three of them are overlooking a day of triumph that tells him they feel exactly the way he does.

3. Fading Away

No matter how many t-shirts he's destroyed, not to mention jeans, sneakers, and socks (hundreds of thousands of pairs by now, his mom swears), the Cap never loses its shape or color, even after that unfortunate incident involving the pressure-washer.

4. Spirit

"Look, Virg, I'm just not that worried; I mean, it's not like ghosts can actually touch…HEY, give that back!"

5. Choose

The Mighty One thoroughly believes that being chosen is unfair, but if he hadn't been chosen as a hero, he's not sure what else he'd be doing with his time, so he's made it work for him.

6. Immortal

After Max found out that Virgil's rope-belt was older than a few World Heritage Sites, most of them, in fact, he was a little nicer to some of the Lemurian's stuff.

7. Open Your Eyes

"It's okay, mom – the big nasty, scary demon thing is all gone now, so how about you uncover your eyes while we run now?"

8. Electrify

The very first time Max put on the Cap, the rush of cosmic power, of destiny's hand, of millions of possibilities that surged through him changed him forever, and there's no feeling in the world, good or bad, that could be more intense than that.

9. Starlight

One of the Cap-Bearer's favorite things to do on a camp-out with his Guardian is to ask which stars are new in the sky, and which have died and gone out; it makes him feel a lot smaller, which, when you're a hero, is kind of a relief.

10. Sacrifice

If asked, Max will never confess that he's not sure which would hurt more – giving up every Saturday of his life, or giving up the Cap, because truthfully, he can't bear to lose either.

11. Honor

There's an important difference between being dragged before Skullmaster and walking up proudly while snapping off a smart remark, and Max understands this better than anyone.

12. Bite

"Um, that snake, you know, the one I just stepped on, it wasn't poisonous, right?"

13. Commit

Given the choice – massive property damage or a giant slug reproducing by the billions to take over the world – the Cap-Bearer hopes the local justice system is willing to play a little fast and loose with some laws.

14. Fake

He puts on a good show, but in the end, Mighty Max knows exactly how important he is; the whining and pestering Virgil is all part of his carefully-constructed act to keep the bad guys guessing, and that's his story and he's sticking to it.

15. Tender

For all the time Virgil has spent with Norman, you'd think the Lemurian would be over his fainting thing every time he sees blood; the only time Virg doesn't lose it is when the blood belongs to Max, and then, he proves what 10,000 years of ancient medicine can do.

16. Trouble

Whenever Max's mom bursts out the front door waving something probably burned and destroyed beyond recognition, Virgil and Norman are mysteriously absent, leaving the Cap-Bearer to explain on his own how exactly he'd managed to maim whatever-it-used-to-be.

17. Final

When the world re-set and Max started his journey all over again, he made a secret trip to Stonehenge without the others; once there, he looked at the spot where he had lost Virgil and swore, no matter what, that this time the end would be far, far different.

18. Waiting

The last five minutes between the bad guy's last monologue and the End of the World according to whatever diabolical device he has planted are always tense and boring – tense because, well, End of the World and all that, but boring because it's five minutes of waiting for Norman to let him out of the death trap or the cage or the big freaking contraption, and he has better ways to spend five minutes than worrying.

19. Awareness

The Mighty One knows that even if he was upside-down, blindfolded, and under water, he'd still know exactly where Norman was beside him; on top of that, if he so much as wiggled his feet, he knows Norman would be able to interpret exactly what he wanted done and would make it happen.

20. Turn Away

One of the things Virgil admires most about his Cap-Bearer is the fact that, no matter how horrid the situation, the boy faces it unflinchingly and with courage beyond his years – the fact that he has to do so, however, is something Virgil blames himself for every time.

21. Searching

"No, Virg, I can't possibly get there until I find my other sneaker, so just give me 15 minutes and THEN we can go save the world, okay?"

22. Hands of Fate

Sometimes, after a dire, world-ending scenario that they survived and handled by pure luck, Max looks at his hands in despair, because they just aren't big enough to catch and hold the fate of the world when it comes flying at him, and someday he's going to miss.

23. Irresistible

There are only two things that Norman cannot fail to do even at the cost of his honor, his immortality, and his life: protect the Mighty One against any and all danger, and play Skee Ball – and it's a really good thing these two pastimes have never come into conflict with one another.

24. Easy

"Easy as falling off a log" is how the Cap-Bearer often explains the feeling of going through a portal to someone for the first time, but he helpfully fails to mention that the "falling" part is what happens on reentry.

25. Breathing

After an explosion, perfect silence is a beautiful thing, but far, far better is the proof that somewhere under the dust and piles are the two people Max cares about more than anything.

26. Stumble

"You know, all these roots are just begging one of us to trip while we're running away from…hey, any idea what happened to Virg?"

27. Fighting

Norman is the best Guardian ever, and the Mighty One knows he's safe if Norman is within a 10-mile radius of him no matter what, but why then can't the big guy seem to win at Super Smash Bros without cheating?

28. Closing In

With the timeline reset, it's only a matter of weeks before Skullmaster again uses the Crystal of Souls to send the Atlanteans after him, and this fact has been more and more apparent every time he dreams of barnacle-covered arms coming out of the shadows for him.

29. Involved

A certain adventure involving a grass skirt and a clan of weird hyena people ended with a complete and total moratorium on Max's mom or friends ever accompanying him to a saving-the-world thing again; also, it made Max the butt of every joke for three months straight.

30. Destiny

Even though Virgil once explained the "real" definition of destiny (free will, necessity, and chance), the Mighty One usually breaks it down into "stuff he does 'cause he can," "stuff he does 'cause he has to," and "what the hell was that?"

31. Sweet

Virgil learned many things over his 10,000 years, but, as the Cap-Bearer learned one unfortunate birthday, baking was not one of them.

32. Calling

"Seriously, Normie, I can't talk any louder – are you really sure you don't have the phone upside down?"

33. Nightmare

He'd survived Armageddon, he'd reordered the cosmos to give himself another chance to save the universe, but he could never, ever forget what it felt like to fail every person he'd ever met, known, cared about, hated, or vowed to save.

34. Flat

On the list of "fun ways to get to the next portal," walking 50 miles through the Australian outback ranked somewhere between "riding a cactus" and "crossing the LA freeway on foot."

35. Superstar

At some point, the news about Max's "extracurricular" activities got out to the student body at large, and while it definitely earned him some street cred, he still never seemed to get fan-girls the way even the lead of a terrible movie did, and Max still thinks this is unfair.

36. Spider Web

When Norman froze, absolutely locked up in his own terror, a tiny part of his mind was still calm, because he knew, no matter what, his Mighty One would save him, and even though it was a dereliction of his duties, it was also a very great comfort.

37. Haunted

Virgil never shared more with the Cap-Bearer than he deemed absolutely necessary, not to limit or hinder the boy, but because no one should know too much about the evils that hungrily lie in wait to devour them.

38. Rich

It doesn't matter how many ancient treasures Max uncovered or how many riddles he unraveled – somehow, he still never got more than his allowance from his mom for all his hard work.

39. Everybody

Sometimes, he goes out to get coffee with his friends, and he just stares at people, trying to memorize faces, because there's no telling who in a crowd might be next week's victim, next week's hero, or next week's villain, so Max just tries to keep track of them all.

40. Meant No Harm

"Please," he rasped as he began to slip from the world, holding Mighty Max's arm in a cold grip, "I didn't mean for this…I only wanted…I just wanted to help…tell them that I'm sorry…"

41. Apple

The one time – one time! – he remembered to pack a lunch when he got a summons in the morning, it still wound up as ammo against some kind of rock-things, which were nonplussed by airborne sandwiches, chips, and apples, but they seemed a little eager for the cookies he didn't give away so easily.

42. Darling

After the fourth awful ballad, Max decided that Karaoke was a lot more fun without his Guardian and Lemurian friends, and also, they needed better taste in music.

43. Name

Though it never appealed to him before, the Mighty One started enjoying history class, not for the class aspect, but because he never knows when he'll run into some historical person who'll turn out to be his legendary Guardian – it's like Where's Waldo with a giant sword.

44. By My Side

Although Mighty Max wouldn't, if he had the whole world to choose from, want anyone but Virgil and Norman beside him when everything goes to hell, he sometimes wonders if they'd pick him – he shouldn't though, because they knew they'd have chosen him before there were people on his continent.

45. Mountains

It was just a phrase, "faith moves mountains," right up until there was a mountain between the Guardian and Max and Skullmaster, and then Norman proved that something else can move mountains: fury.

46. Stay

Every now and again, an adventure will run hours or days long, and when it ends, the Cap-Bearer will curl up on a couch in the big place Virg and Norman share, not because it's faster than going home (when often it'd be quicker just to portal back to his street), but because after something like that, it eases all their minds to be near each other just a little while longer.

47. Blood

It might have been a vocational hazard, but it seemed to make a lot of people uncomfortable that Max knew the precise recipe to get every fluid known to man (and some that weren't) out of whites without leaving a stain; his mom, anyway, was just glad he'd started doing his own laundry.

48. Laugh

When the Mighty One started to laugh, Virgil and Norman both relaxed – they weren't out of danger, not by a long shot, but when the boy was that certain of victory, everything else was reduced to an afterthought.

49. Key

"Mom, I'm sorry, I know it's 3am, but I'm locked out, and my key is either in Siberia or Ethiopia, and you already said I wasn't allowed to let Norman force in the door anymore…"

50. End

When time itself reset and the Mighty One had to start over, he started to wonder if he would ever progress beyond these crazy times, or if his heroism, and his failures, were locked in a repeating cycle that would keep him and the world moving like the tides, back and forth, no closer to shore and no farther dragged into the deeps, until at last his soul stirred and something amazing, something he couldn't fathom, finally tipped the balance once and for all.


End file.
